Upgrade for BOTH Pro Guitar and Keys - how?

I recently got this urge to scavenge the internet for a good deal on the pro guitar (yes, the real one. the Squier!) and so I decided to do a follow-up on adding keys-upgrades... by also adding upgrading pro guitar/bass. I deleted song cache on my hard drive and went through the installation once again. However, I do notice this warning:

"IMPORTANT: YOU CANNOT USED OFFICIAL PRO GUITAR/BASS UPGRADES AND RB:HP

UPGRADES FOR THE SAME SONG CONCURRENTLY. YOUR GAME WILL FREEZE ON LOAD.

You need to use one or the other, or merge the two files together – something that isn't quite in the

scope of this guide but I can assist with if you want to give it a try"

But a bit before, the following is noted:

“Pro Guitar/Pro Bass” upgrades also include:

◦ Keys/Pro Keys, if applicable.

◦ Chart fixes, if applicable.

◦ Harmonies upgrades, if applicable.

◦ Pro Drums upgrades, if applicable."

Because of this, i decided to use the files in this folder, hoping I would have all the three upgrades - harmonies, keys and pro guitar/bass. However trying to see if it was a success, I load up the game (I've done all the 7 steps in "Standard Setup" correctly)... no freeze. I go to song list on Quickplay. To see if there's both pro guitar and keys, I look up RB1 songs where both upgrades exist. I notice that they used to have keys before,,, but now there's only pro guitar/bass, not keys...or harmonies. Only upgrade now is pro guitar/bass, whereas both keys and harmonies was successfully implemented, before.

I guess the only option is merging, but how exactly? I have learned there's this C3 Con Tools-program but I'm not exactly sure how to use it, if this is the solution to my problem. Either it doesn't exist or there's a guide right under my nose that I've missed. Still, I'd be happy if somebody showed me how to apply a complete upgrade for harmonies, pro guitar/bass and keys, working perfectly. Thanks, in advance. ^^

Official pro guitar/pro bass upgrades - the ones Harmonix released, that you buy in the marketplace - do not play nice with RBHP. The game only correctly loads one upgrade file, and we're trying to feed it two. You more or less need to merge the midi files, use the songs.dta from RBHP, and use the upgrades.dta from the official upgrade. That, as far as I was concerned, fell outside of my initial scope - and to be frank, I didn't want to field Help Desk calls from people who were in over their head trying to figure out how to extra files from packages or successfully merge midi files or any of that. Nemo's tools may take care of that now - I honestly can't remember how to go about it, and I don't have pro guitar and never needed to experiment with it on my own.

The RBHP upgrade files for PG/PB are supposed to include the other pieces (either that or PK includes PG/PB, which might be the way I actually did it - I always mix it up and probably screwed it up on re-exports, honestly). In any event, if the packages are set up and the steps are followed, and there's no conflict with an existing pro guitar/pro bass upgrade, you should get everything. Regardless of whether I baked PK parts into PG, or PG parts into PK, they both have harmonies, so if you're not even getting harmonies, something went wrong with the package setup or the cache building.

You can use the Harmonies Project packager to package the Keys/Harmonies upgrade, use C3 CON Tools to bundle it with a song, then again use the Harmonies Project packager to package only the Pro Upgrade file and again use C3 CON Tools to bundle it with the already bundled song. That's how I've upgraded all of my songs and it works perfectly. Lot of work however, but I never have to mess with the cache if something's broken.

You can use the Harmonies Project packager to package the Keys/Harmonies upgrade, use C3 CON Tools to bundle it with a song, then again use the Harmonies Project packager to package only the Pro Upgrade file and again use C3 CON Tools to bundle it with the already bundled song. That's how I've upgraded all of my songs and it works perfectly. Lot of work however, but I never have to mess with the cache if something's broken.

Is Harmonies Project packager different than the Upgrade Bundler in C3 Con Tools?

Okay, so I'm gonna start packaging stuff. Is there any list of Pro G/B-upgrades I should stay away from (for example there's already an official upgrade for Monkey Wrench, so I should stay away from the upgrade in my package)?

Whizzer, on 07 Feb 2016 - 5:22 PM, said:

You can use the Harmonies Project packager to package the Keys/Harmonies upgrade, use C3 CON Tools to bundle it with a song, then again use the Harmonies Project packager to package only the Pro Upgrade file and again use C3 CON Tools to bundle it with the already bundled song. That's how I've upgraded all of my songs and it works perfectly. Lot of work however, but I never have to mess with the cache if something's broken.

I so fail already at the very first step. I mean "DTA File is missing."? No I haven't deleted anything.

I use the packager to choose keys-upgrade for the GD: RB-song and create an upgrade package. Now that I have it, I open Upgrade Bundler. First things first. The song-MIDI goes to left, right? And I suppose the UpgradePackage made by Packager goes to the right? Just to be safe, I copy-paste "upgrade.dta" to the folder with UpgradePackage,,, but still, I get "DTA file is missing. Did you just delete it?". I suppose I've gravely misunderstood an important detail (yes, I opened "Help" in Upgrade Bundler, but I didn't get wiser from that, despite repeatedly reading it. So, big thanks to whichever great guy/gal clarifying this stuff for me. ^^

Okay, so I'm gonna start packaging stuff. Is there any list of Pro G/B-upgrades I should stay away from (for example there's already an official upgrade for Monkey Wrench, so I should stay away from the upgrade in my package)?

You can use the Harmonies Project packager to package the Keys/Harmonies upgrade, use C3 CON Tools to bundle it with a song, then again use the Harmonies Project packager to package only the Pro Upgrade file and again use C3 CON Tools to bundle it with the already bundled song. That's how I've upgraded all of my songs and it works perfectly. Lot of work however, but I never have to mess with the cache if something's broken.

I so fail already at the very first step. I mean "DTA File is missing."? No I haven't deleted anything.

I use the packager to choose keys-upgrade for the GD: RB-song and create an upgrade package. Now that I have it, I open Upgrade Bundler. First things first. The song-MIDI goes to left, right? And I suppose the UpgradePackage made by Packager goes to the right? Just to be safe, I copy-paste "upgrade.dta" to the folder with UpgradePackage,,, but still, I get "DTA file is missing. Did you just delete it?". I suppose I've gravely misunderstood an important detail (yes, I opened "Help" in Upgrade Bundler, but I didn't get wiser from that, despite repeatedly reading it. So, big thanks to whichever great guy/gal clarifying this stuff for me. ^^

Not the midi file for the song, but the original song package, either LIVE or CON signed, goes to the left. Packs of songs don't work, however, only single songs. The upgrade package, whether made by the Harmonies Project Packager, or as found somewhere on these forums as ready-to-go upgrades (similar if not the same as the official Harmonix Pro Upgrades), goes to the right.

Whatever you put on the left needs both a midi and songs.dta file, whatever goes on the right needs a upgrade.dta file and an upgrade midi.

If the RBHP package also contains an updated songs.dta file, containing the new information for harmonies, for example, I always integrate that first using C3 CON Tools, and only then do I do the upgrading, because that may also change the songs.dta in the package. Doing the upgrade first and then replacing songs.dta would mean undoing any changes done by the upgrade process.

Hope this helps!

Edit:

As for what to stay away from. The official upgrade for Monkey Wrench is only Pro Guitar/Bass, whereas the Harmonies Project adds harmonies. These can both be implemented, in either order. There may be custom Pro Guitar/Bass files that contain rhythm guitar instead of bass (or on hard pro bass, for example), but I don't use these myself. I've collected a lot of Pro Upgrades and found many duplicates. I tried to determine which were the best and don't mind uploading my final collection.

Yes, the RBHP master package doesn't contain CONs. You can make them by only building a package using the files for one song. The dummy contains the songs.dta (if applicable) - you don't need this one. The upgrade contains the upgrades.dta and the midi.

You can't drag a songs.dta file to the left portion of the Upgrader, but you can drag a song file onto it, which contains that songs.dta file.

I get the impression that the CON-file that I'm supposed to drag to the left is the upgrade. So I drag the upgrade... only to be met by "This looks like a pro upgrade, only song files are valid here". Down there in the text box it says " Received CON file RBHP_CustomUpgradePackage_20160222, searching for MIDI to extract" (why would it search if the upgrade already contains the MIDI?).

And directly after, it says "Can't work with this CON file, try again."...

No, the Upgrade definitely goes to the right. The song itself goes to the left. Perhaps it can't be a LIVE file, but only a CON? If so, try the LIVE to CON converter contained in C3 CON Tools.

I'm guessing it's looking for a midi to be upgraded, rather than the upgrade midi.

Have you managed to replace the songs.dta in the song file with the one from the Harmonies Project? If so, open the upgrader, drag the file with the replaced songs.dta to the left, the RBHP prepared Upgrade to the right. That should allow you to combine them. With the bundled file, you can repeat the process, this time bundling the Pro Guitar upgrade (for songs that have official Harmonix Pro Upgrades), or any other upgrade you might want to use.

I can't do anything related to LIVE or CON as everything's MIDI-based.

And what do you mean by the .dta-files? Is there an original? Because all I see are the .dta-files already in place as part of Harmonies Project?

Wait. I just discovered something fishy.

I learned that I'm supposed to first insert all base-folders. Then the Pro G/B-folders (and let them replace base-folders. Then the Keys-folders (but not replacing G/B-folders as Keys also do contain G/B where applicable). Loading up the dummy... success! The dummy demonstrates all upgrades in place, nothing was left... but when I remove the dummy, it's back to just having Pro G/B but no Keys?

The dummy demonstrates all upgrades in place, nothing was left... but when I remove the dummy, it's back to just having Pro G/B but no Keys?

The only way this makes sense to me is if we didn't follow the whole delete-and-rebuild-caches part of the process. If you have the dummy there, the game will parse and present that data even if there are older/existing songcache entries for the same songs, but as soon as you delete it, it will revert to the 'first' content added to the cache and then integrate the pro guitar/bass data from the upgrades as it would with a marketplace upgrade.

Pro bass/guitar upgrades can be loaded onto "existing" song cache entries because the game was build to accept those upgrades - it's why the PG/PB customs folks give you pre-made CONs for those upgrades and just have you put them on your USB key. Getting harmonies and keys/pro keys to stick requires much more in the way of manipulation.

I reiterate these fairly often, but in the broadest of brushstrokes, here are the steps you should be taking (the video/guide go into them in detail):

* Delete any existing song cache files.

* Prepare a USB drive for customs and put TU4 (or TU5 - whichever one is also on your Xbox HDD), the dummy package, and the upgrade package on it.

* Remove your existing DLC (the songs you want to upgrade) from the environment (disconnect hard drive, move song files to a *different* USB key and disconnect the USB, etc.).

This is interesting. I swear I did all this... except putting update 4 on my USB drive... could it be that it plays an important role in this context? I will now follow these steps completely, and see...

YES! No idea if it was that I had to have TU4 in both USB drive and hard drive, have my saved game file and Xbox profile transferred to my USB drive, or both. Regardless, it worked. Now I just have to hope songs won't crash, like with that official Pro G/B combined with RB: HP-upgrade"-thing and if so, do that merging thing. But at the very least I'm all set... for now. Thanks, guys! ^^'

I see now that pro upgrades won't show up at al, if they do have RB: HP-upgrades. This is related to the fact that the game can't run two upgrades, as mentioned.

But if I got this right... I transferred the song files to the USB. Now I put song file to the left in Upgrade Bundler and one of either official Pro G/B or RB: HP-upgrade to the right. Once done I run the Bundler again, this time putting same song file to the left and the other upgrade to the right?

(I did this, but Xbox didn't detect the newly built CON-supposed to contain those files. Why?

When bundling songs with RBHP and Official Pro Upgrades, you can only use RBHP built Upgrade packages for a single song, not the Upgrade package that contains the upgraded harmonies etc. for all of your songs. That makes it a pain, but it's only required for songs for which you also have the official Harmonix upgrade.

Odd that the game didn't pick up the new CON file? Did you first remove the song from the cache, from in-game? You can do that by first copying it to a USB drive, so you don't lose the actual file to upgrade, then remove the song from within the game (removes entire packs/albums, if it's a part of one, so beware). Otherwise, the game won't detect the upgrade contained within the song, because it already has data on that song in the cache.

No, I mean that the Xbox won't read them at all. I made CON-files containing both RB: HP-harmonies and official Pro G/B but those CONS won't show up at all, even if I delete the originals from the USB. Either I'm doing it completely wrong or I've made a slight error/overlook...

EDIT: Closer to finding the truth. In my very first attempt, I put the original CON to the left. To the right I put songs.dta, upgrade.dta, and the MIDI-upgrade to the right. Xbox will read this file. Now I take my new CON-file, with harmonies, and add the official pro-upgrade, as per the same procedure (with the exception of adding an upgrade.dta as it's already there). Xbox will not read.

However, I decided to build on the original CON-again, this time first using the official upgrade. It seems Xbox reads both the original and my new CON-file now. However, they show up as identical, even by timestamp. Attempting to solve this, I connect the drive to the computer and delete the original CON from there. From 2 files showing up on Xbox... to none?

(And is there anything specific to think of, when downloading new songs and their pro-upgrades at the same time? I mean, how to add harmonies-upgradee, as the official upgrades were read first by the game?)

I'm honestly not versed in bundling these so I really can't share any specific insight. Not sure why the Xbox won't read the second package - you'd probably have to explore it and see if there's any weirdness in how its laid out or if the .dta got broken, but without being familiar w/ how it *should* look that's a little tough to do.